Things lurking under your bed is the fixation of almost every child growing up, but a New Jersey homeowner spotted a man under the spare bedroom at 9 p.m. It turned out to be Jason Hubbard, who is charged with burglary after allegedly sleeping under the bed for three days.
Continue reading “Ever Wonder What Might Be Under Your Bed? Well Meet Jason Hubbard”
British Prime Minister David Cameron has long been a target of civil libertarians criticizing his dismissive attitude toward basic rights and particularly speech and privacy rights in that country. As if to prove his critics right, Cameron has publicly made comments that can be best described as Orwellian and some have gone as far as describing as fascistic. In calling for new extensive powers, Cameron said “For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens: as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone. It’s often meant we have stood neutral between different values. And that’s helped foster a narrative of extremism and grievance.” It seemed like a scene out of V for Vendetta as Cameron called on citizens to give up their rights to fight the threat of terror.
Police in New York have arrested Zvi Shor, 64, the founder of the National Children’s Leukemia Foundation (NCLF). He is accused of a truly despicable fraud. The New York Attorney General’s office alleges that roughly 83 percent of the nearly $10 million that the NCLF raised from 2009 to 2013 was paid to professional fundraisers and less than one percent— $57,541— went to direct assistance for leukemia patients. Shor, whose son died of leukemia, has previously been accused of fraud. He was convicted of felony bank fraud in the Eastern District of New York in 1999.
We have yet another case of a police or security officer threatening a citizen for recording an encounter. The videotape below was taken by a young man who filmed the putdown of his father at the New Orleans airport. The supervisor warns the young man that he will be arrested for filming the public scene.
Continue reading “Video: TSA Supervisor Threatens Young Man Filming the Patdown Of His Father”
I have been a critic of aspects of the case against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Blagojevich, 58, was convicted of 18 counts of corruption and given a 14-year sentence. The most problematic charge in my view concerned Blagojevich’s wheeling and dealing for the appointment of a successor to fill the 2008 vacant U.S. Senate seat of then-President-Elect Barack Obama. Now a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has overturned five of the counts specifically dealing with that vacancy controversy.
Continue reading “Seventh Circuit Overturns Five Counts From Blagojevich Conviction”
Television personality Kelly Siegler is under fire this month for what critics are saying is a history of unethical conduct as a prosecutor, including the hiding of evidence in capital punishment cases. After a career as a Harris County prosecutor, Siegler became the star in a reality series on TNT called Cold Justice, now in its third season. Siegler’s allegedly checkered history as a prosecutor is reminiscent of the controversy surrounding Nancy Grace, who was denounced an an unethical prosecutor who violated the rights of accused persons but has been retained by CNN as a show host and legal commentator.
There is a criminal case that is truly a reflection of our changing times. A 70-year-old transgender woman named Richelle Dee McDonald was convicted of stealing nearly $250,000 in federal disability benefits. What makes this different is that it was committed by both Richelle and Richard McDonald, who are one and the same. McDonald applied for benefits as a man while working simultaneously as a woman during much of the same period she was receiving SSI payments.
Continue reading “Richard Did It: Seventy-Year-Old Woman Sentenced In Trans-Fraud Case”
Saudi Arabia has given the world another bizarre example of life under the strict Islamic code and values of the Kingdom. The Talaee Al-Noor International School in Riyadh painted an inviting and playful rainbow image on its building. The Kingdom’s religious police quickly swooped in an arrested the administrator, fined the school $25,000, and ordered the facade painted over. The reason? Rainbows are seen as “emblems Of homosexuality.” It is not clear what the religious police will do with naturally occurring rainbows.
Retired general and former Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark has caused a stir with an interview with MSNBC in which he appeared to call for the establishment of World War II-style internment camps to be revived for “disloyal Americans.” Clark used the infamous American internment camps for Japanese, German, and Italian Americans as a model: “if someone supported Nazi Germany at the expense of the United States, we didn’t say that was freedom of speech, we put him in a camp, they were prisoners of war.”
Continue reading “Wesley Clark Calls For New American Internment Camps”
The arrest of Brandon Hayes, 30, in Rhode Island may have seemed like a routine traffic stop and possession case until police officers checked his record. Hayes had succeeded in racking up his 41st arrest in two states. That is 38 arrests in Massachusetts and two in Rhode Island including gun and drug charges. The case is a prototypical example of habitual offender in the criminal justice system.
Continue reading “Rhode Island Man Arrested For 41st Offense In Two States”
A Maryland state lawmaker was recently charged with trespassing and indecent exposure for allegedly baring her breast during a dispute with her ex-husband at his home. Delegate Ariana B. Kelly, a Montgomery County Democrat, was charged with trespass and indecent exposure in a confrontation with Barak Sanford after dropping off their two children.
Continue reading “Maryland Legislator Charged With Bizarre Conduct Outside Ex-Husband’s House”
It is hard to believe that it has been a year since the murder of Florida State University law professor Dan Markel on July 18, 2014. There has been no arrests in the case but this week the police released a picture of the car that they believe may have been involved in the crime.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In Sharp v. Roling, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit granted a habeas corpus petition by a Kansas woman convicted in state court of kidnapping and felony murder. The evidence in question was what the Court determined to be an involuntary confession elicited by detectives on the promise that the defendant would not be jailed in exchange for her statements.
The significance of this ruling should establish a new practice that any offer by law enforcement that can be considered an offer of immunity from prosecution, regardless of whether formal or informal, will generate a high probability of suppression of any confession by a potential defendant.
The Justice Department has lost a major case where it sought to bar efforts to determine if a convicted rapist is in fact innocent. The Obama Administration argued in United States v. Watson that Bill Watson should not be able to use a new DNA test that was not available when he was convicted of a rape in 2006. Despite dozens of cases where convicted individuals were proven innocent, the Obama Administration fought to prevent the use of this test even though the Innocence Project offered to shoulder all of the costs. The position of the Justice Department was inimical to the values of due process and the rule of law, in my view. The United States Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit rejected the highly technical claims that neither Watson nor the court should knew the true identity of source of key evidence found at the crime scene.
We have previously discussed the disconnect in some individuals, particularly ISIS recruits, who live relatively normal lives in the West only to become suddenly radicalized and violent as Islamic extremists. Chattanooga gunman Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez could be such a case, though police are still trying to confirm the motivation for the attacks. The attack has been labeled “domestic terrorism.” Abdulazeez, 24, murdered four Marines and wounded a police officer on Thursday in shootings at two military recruiting and training centers in Chattanooga, Tennessee. What is now known is that he posted a couple posts shortly before the attack discussing how Muslims should act in this short life and how they had to resist the corrupting influence of life around them in proving their faith.